The symptoms of our environmental illness

Exercise 1. Read and memorize the words:

awash - 1) на одном уровне с поверхностью воды 2) смытый водой The rising water set everything awash. — Прилив смыл все

sewage - сточные воды; нечистоты

garbage - отбросы; остатки, гниющий мусор to collect, pick up the garbage — собирать мусор to dispose of garbage — избавляться от мусора to dump garbage — сваливать мусор

dumps - 1) мусорная куча; отвал ( кучи руды, земли и т. п., образующиеся в результате горных работ ) 2) а) свалка garbage dump, trash dump — мусорная свалка the town dump — городская свалка

pesticides - пестицид, средство для борьбы с вредителями

depletion - уменьшение, истощение (запасов, финансовых ресурсов и т.д. )

confident - уверенный ( в успехе и т. п. - of )

retreat - уходить, удаляться, уединяться

reclamation - утилизация, переработка; повторное использование ( отходов, устаревшего оборудования, использованных материалов и т. п. ) reclamation industry — перерабатывающая промышленность waste water reclamation — очистка промышленных вод

fossil - ископаемое, окаменелость ( остатки животных или растительных организмов, сохранившиеся в земной коре с прежних геологических эпох )

to dump - выгружать, разгружать, сваливать

landfill - 1) закапывание мусора, отходов 2) мусорная свалка

averting - предотвращение, предохранение, предупреждение

discarded - 1)никчемная вещь, ненужный предмет; отходы 2) избавляться от чего-л. (отбрасывать, выбрасывать за ненадобностью )

Exercise 2. Read and translate the text:

▪ The symptoms of our environmental illness include smog, beaches awash with sewage, overflowing garbage dumps, acid rains, killed lakes, pesticides in fruit and vegetables, toxic substances in drinking water, etc.

▪ The greenhouse effect may be the preeminent environmental problem facing the world today. A variety of factors contribute to it – overpopulation, deforestation, ozone depletion, garbage dumping and more.

Experts are confident that the Earth has entered a period of global climate change.

There are some beneficial effects of climate change. They include, for instance, milder winters in northern climes, an increase in rainfall in some regions that need it, and faster crop growth.

But we must remember that possible early disastrous effects will include these:

-a continuing rise in average global sea level;

- an increase in extremes of temperature, dryness and precipitation;

- a striking retreat of mountain glaciers around the world.

▪ Of all the man’s interventions in the natural order, none is accelerating quite so alarmingly as the creation of chemical compounds. Although cause-and-effect relationship between many chemicals and specific illnesses are still difficult to prove, the danger is clearly growing.

At the very top of the environmental scientists’ list of concerns about pollution damage is contamination of ground water. While most ground water is believed to remain pure, concern is rising because it is one of nature’s greatest unrenewable resources. Unlike surface water or air, ground water is almost impossible to purify once it has become chemically polluted. In the past, ground water was kept pure because the soil at the earth’s surface acted as a filtration system. But this filtration system does not reliably screen out the waste chemicals that now leak into the soil from a variety of sources.

The chemical pollution of the Third World is likely to increase. Developing countries searching for ways to boost food production eagerly buy cheaper – if more deadly – pesticides, which may cause cancer, damage to respiratory system and nervous disorders.

▪ For over 30 years nuclear power has been a reality, the greatest danger is associated with nuclear power comes. It comes from one of its by-products – radiation. We can’t see radiation, or smell it, or touch it. Another problem is the long-lasting nature of radiation. What are the alternatives to nuclear power?

▪ The massive increase in public concern for protection of the environment has given a new prominence to the recycling industry, which covers everything from the collection of beverage cans and the reclamation of old car bodies to the treatment of industrial sludge.

The great advantage of recycling is that it saves a large proportion of the energy. This is of paramount importance at a time when energy conservation is essential to reduce the use of fossil fuels which contribute to global warming – the greenhouse effect.

Materials which are recycled are less expensive than primary raw materials.

Recycling also avoids the need to dump large quantities of used materials in landfill sites.

It offers the potential for averting the crisis of running out of raw materials.

Today, recycling is a major activity in the industrialized countries. Advanced technology is used to collect, sort and process materials that are discarded by industry or by public.

Exercise 2. Answer the questions to the text:

TEXT 3

The Cigarette Ban

Exercise 1. Read and memorize the words:

Miserable - жалкий, несчастный

Addictive - вырабатывающий привыкание (о лекарствах, наркотиках)

Ban - запрещение

Headquarters - штаб; штаб-квартира; орган управления войсками

Barrack - стеллаж

Exercise 2. Read and translate the text:

They walk around city streets like a friendless tribe. You see them in doorways of big offices, grouped together in shared misery. Many of them walk around the city as they satisfy a habit once thought fashionable, but now totally out of touch with the teenagers.

The lives of America's 40 million or so smokers are about to become even more miserable. The Clinton administration wants to put at least another 75 cents a pack on cigarettes to help pay the changes in the health-care system. Some members of Congress want $2 or more of an increase, which would double the price of a packet of cigarettes.

Recently, the US government's Drug Administration announced that nicotine in cigarettes is addictive and that tobacco should be regulated as a drug. In May, health officials in the state of Maryland, where farmers have grown the tobacco crop for centuries, banned smoking in all its closed workplaces - factories, offices, shops, lorries, vans and cars used for work, as well as in restaurants. The tobacco industry, fearing many more similar new laws, says that this is health fascism.

No one believes that banning smoking entirely would work - Prohibition, the attempt to ban alcohol from 1920-33, was a big failure. But across the United States, local governments and private businesses are trying to make life more uncomfortable and more expensive for smokers.

Traditionally, tobacco has been as much a part of American culture as rock 'n' roll or jeans. In 1619, the first settlers of Jamestown in Virginia nearly lost all their money after bad harvests. However, they were saved by their tobacco crop and the sudden fashion for smoking in Europe.

By the time Thomas Jefferson and other plantation owners wrote the American Declaration of Independence in the 1770s, many of them not only smoked tobacco, they also owed their wealth to it. Some states still do. The tobacco company R.J.Reynolds has its headquarters in the town of Winston-Salem in North Carolina. Its building, completed in 1929, was so impressive that it became the model for New York's Empire State Building. Reynolds says that just one of its factories generates $13 million a day in taxes for the US government.

But now, it looks as big tobacco really is in trouble. Early last year, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) produced a report on "second-hand smoking". It claimed that second-hand smoke from other people's cigarettes was a "carcinogen", responsible for the deaths of thousands of non-smoking Americans every year and producing illnesses such as bronchitis in hundreds of thousands of others. The report has understandably been strongly challenged by the tobacco companies.

The way people view smokers has changed dramatically in the States. The Marlboro man - the cowboy in advertisements for this particular brand of cigarette - used to show the tough independent spirit of smokers. But now the Marlboro cowboy is no longer tough but a polluter, filling other people's lungs with dangerous chemicals.

Private businesses like the McDonalds burger chain have banned smoking on their premises. So has the Pentagon, the headquarters of the US Department of Defense, which 20 years ago included cigarettes in its military rations. In May, its 1,6 million defense department workers were banned from smoking in or near any of their office buildings, and the US's 1,5 million uniformed troops will be banned from smoking in their tanks, personnel carriers, ships and barracks.

In the early 17th century, Britain's King James I - after whom Jamestown in Virginia was named - said that smoking was horrible to look at, smelt terrible and harmed the brain and lungs. (However, this did not stop him from becoming the first "tobacco" baron in history, when he realized how much money there was to be made from the habit). Perhaps what is most odd is that it has taken the combined power of the EPA, the US Surgeon General, dozens of anti-smoking groups, tens of thousands of medical researchers, millions of dollars and nearly four centuries for the US government to come to the same conclusion as King James did, after just one smell, all those years ago.

Exercise 2. Answer the questions to the text:

1. Why are the lives of America's 40 million smokers about to become miserable?

2. What did the US government's Drug Administration announce?

3. Why has tobacco been as much a part of American culture/

4. What has changed dramatically in the States?

5. What companies have banned smoking on their premises?

PART 3

Список литературы

1. Michael McCarthy, Felicity O’Dell “English Vocabulary in use” Cambridge University press, 2000, ISBN 0 521 423961, 296 p.

2. “Longman Essential Activator”, Longman, 1998, ISBN 0 582 24741 1, 997p.

3. Luke Prodromou “First Certificate Star”, Macmillan Heinemann, 2003, ISBN 0-435-28144-5, 240p.

4. Sue O’Connell “First Certificate”, Nelson, 1991, ISBN 0-00- 370051-8, 237p.